Stream

A warm wind blows across the carpark, it moves my hair but I can barely feel it on my face because the temperature is the same as my body. Shattered car window glass sparkles on the tarmac like diamonds. The lights are out and the street is dark. I walk. Slowly. Two men talk in the dark behind macdonalds. A ragga girl dripping with gold chain strolls up the street towards me. Man parked on the main street lays back in his seat listening to bad techno that uses a carnival whistle like a musical instrument. He's outside the gents hair salon that I always misread as saloon. The Gents Hair Saloon. Its full of Turks, not cowboys. The man from the shop that sells brooms, washing up bowls and bins made of bright plastic is clearning his goods from the pavement where they tower all day creating an obstacle course between the shop, the hideous orange telephone box and the men standing around. Mourn the loss of the red telephone box. Wonder if the double decker will go the same way. A man sits in the corner of Ye Olde Ale Emporium drinking a dark beer and smoking a cloud. Pass the second employee of Sainsbury's on the way to work. Open all night. Brown leaves scatter in the breeze. Like autumn descended today. Blowing round in circles with plastic bags and newsprint. Better Haringey, says a green recycling box strewn across a front entrance to a house. I'm not so sure. A few last blooms of a lilac in the lower sheltered part of the bush, all the rest are brown and dying. Light streams from my door as I open it and go inside.